


go scratch your name into the clouds, pull 'em all...down

by Yevynaea



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angst, Corruption, Dark Luke, Dark Side Leia, Empress Leia Organa, Force Ghosts, Government, Heroes to Villains, Multi, One Shot, Politics, The Dark Side of the Force, although tbh i might right some kind of sequel at some point i like this au now, sort of, that's what this is, two evil twins sharing a boyfriend and ruling the galaxy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 19:29:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6579379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yevynaea/pseuds/Yevynaea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leia Organa does not fall to the Dark Side.</p><p> </p><p>She jumps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	go scratch your name into the clouds, pull 'em all...down

Princess Senator Ambassador Leia Organa (Amidala Skywalker) does  _ not  _ fall to the Dark Side of the Force.

Really, it’s more like she jumps.

(Now, in most worlds this is not the case. In most worlds, Leia’s soul is rooted firmly and strongly in the light, even as others fall around her, to the Dark or to the grave, and she becomes a hero, a wife, a mother, a General, a widow, not necessarily in that order. In some worlds she becomes a Jedi, wielding a lightsaber as bright-sky-blue as her father’s before her. This is not one of those worlds.)

In this world, Princess Senator Ambassador Leia Organa (Amidala Skywalker) jumps, feet-first, wary, into the dark, in small steps rather than all at once, because she knows that’s the smartest way to do most things.

It’s unclear, in the end, precisely how it happens. Rumors spread, stories vary. The facts that can be agreed upon are as follows:

  * Emperor Palpatine is gone.
  * Darth Vader is gone.
  * The Empire is half-destroyed already.



The facts that cannot be agreed upon are as follows:

  * Luke Skywalker killed the Emperor.
  * Luke Skywalker killed Darth Vader.
  * The Empire will not die this easily.
  * The Rebellion has won.



This part, at least, is the same as other worlds; when Luke arrives back on Endor, there is grieving, and there is celebration, and it is the end of something, and it is the beginning of something, and talk of ‘what comes next’ is pushed aside just for a night.

This part is different from other worlds; when ‘what comes next’ becomes what’s happening now, there is a thought in Leia’s head that starts out insistent and only gets louder, saying that building a new government from scratch, in the chaos left in the only-yet-half-gone Empire’s wake, will be a very, very difficult task. (The difference is that in this world, she decides to take another route to triumph.)

Empress Organa, mostly by a quick tongue and charisma, takes control of the Empire, and therefore a good chunk of the galaxy. It’s temporary, she assures her fellow rebels, after having convinced them to vote her into power. It puts her in a position to separate those Imperials with loyalties only to Palpatine from those who can be swayed, or who just thought they didn’t have a choice. It keeps everything functioning until a New Republic can be built. She changes the laws, adjusts just enough that people quiet down, and controls just enough that nothing falls apart. (There are whispers that the New Republic will never be a reality. There are whispers that it doesn’t really matter anymore.)

The new Empress trains herself in the ways of the Force, with help from her twin brother and a handful of ghosts. Leia takes to the Dark Side as easily as her brother, as their father before them, and instead of falling to it, or rejecting it, she learns to control it, and to keep it from controlling her. She teaches her reluctant twin to do the same.

Leia takes to marriage as easily as Han, which is to say: terribly, at first. Still, he and Luke become her seconds in command, against many people’s suggestions on Han’s part. (Chewie and Lando become Han’s seconds, and a number of rebel soldiers become thirds and fourths and fifths and sixths as Leia replaces the upper levels of the Empire’s hierarchy with people she knows she can trust.) The remaining Imperial soldiers whose loyalties have shifted take to calling Luke “Lord Skywalker,” despite his continued attempts to stop them. They mostly only call Han “sir”, like they don’t know what to make of him now that they can’t just call him “rebel scum”. All of them try to avoid Chewie completely, whenever possible.

Empress Organa rebuilds, and redesigns, and tears town and rebuilds again, until her Empire is to her liking, and the galaxy is, for the most part, a better place for it, but there are differences between efficiency and freedom, and a balance to be found between them, and it still hasn’t been found. ( _ “So this is how liberty dies: with thunderous applause,”  _ and history runs in almost-circles but this time around it is quiet, and slow, and almost peaceful, and not nearly the same type of death.)

The Dark Side does not control Leia Organa, because she is too strong-willed and far too stubborn to let it, but the Force does not need to control her to have an influence, and jump, or fall, or be pushed, one still ends up with their head beneath the surface at some point. Ghosts with blue halos whisper behind Leia’s back, about when her so-called fall really started. They say maybe it was when Alderaan was destroyed, leaving only debris and the echoes of screams behind. They say maybe it was during any number of years, fighting with everything she had for a cause with slim-to-none chances of success. They say maybe it was when she lost the man she loved (for the first time, but certainly not for the last). Some say that maybe it was just an inevitability; she  _ is _ a Skywalker, after all, in blood if not in name. Regardless of when it started, or when it ended, in this world, Leia jumps.

Her brother, and the man they love, follow, because they’ve both been following her since they met her. At this point, they just don’t know how to stop.

They all three rule the galaxy together, on nearly-even ground, and bit by bit they take more control, and bit by bit a new balance is found, not an even one by far, but a stable one for now. And bit by bit the Darkness swallows them all up, even Han (although it’s less that the Darkness swallows him, too, as it is that it swallows the twins and Han just happens to be standing beside them-- not that he’d ever be anywhere else).

The facts that can be agreed upon are as follows:

  * Leia Organa’s Empire is very different from Sheev Palpatine’s Empire.
  * Lord Skywalker has accepted his title, even if he sighs about it a lot.
  * Han Solo is a loyal husband, soldier, and guard to the Empress.



The facts that cannot be agreed upon are as follows:

  * Leia Organa is a Sith, or a Jedi. Those who have seen the blade of the lightsaber that hangs at her side, and then survived, are few in number and won’t say a word on the subject.
  * Luke Skywalker is a Jedi, or a Sith. His lightsaber is a brilliant green, but the two sides of the Force are simultaneously, confusingly, both clearly defined and blurred into one whole, and both sides lay equal claim to him and no one can ever really be sure which side he is using.
  * Han Solo is about as Force sensitive as your average tree, but he’s pretty good with a blaster, and has two saber-wielding partners with streaks of overprotectiveness they don’t know they inherited from their father.



(Princess Senator Ambassador) Empress Leia Organa (Solo Amidala Skywalker) does  _ not  _ fall to the Dark Side of the Force. It claims her, but does not control her, and she walks in it hand in hand in hand with her twin and the lover they share. Ghosts with blue halos whisper about when her so-called fall started. They conveniently forget to remember that, in this world, she jumped.


End file.
